Tuesday, 3 August 2010

Fertilizer: Soya bean meal

Soya bean meal is what stays behind after milling up and forcing the oil from soya beans.

The meal is loaded in protein, which is why it is normally sold as a food for pigs, cows and chickens, available in feed stores.

Place soya bean meal in the soil and the microorganisms living there first change the protein into amino acids, then break down the acids to make ammonium ions, and, ultimately, nitrate ions.

If you read the print on a bag of non-organic fertilizer you will read that the nitrogen inside is supplied as ammonium or nitrate ions. These two types of nitrogen are appetizing to plants.

If and when you enrich the soil with soya bean meal, you are collaborating in a planned, natural system for feeding plants.

Damp, warm weather encourages micro-organisms to work harder, and this is the identical weather that gets plants to grow quickly and makes them hungry for minerals.

Two cautionary points should be considered when applying soya bean meal or any other fertilizers.

At the beginning of the season, when the soil is chilly, micro-organisms are inactive. Vegetables with thick fleshy leaves, like lettuce and celery, may need some assistance from some fast-acting, dissolvable fertilizer, that is, either a synthetic fertilizer or an organic fertilizer, like fish emulsion.

Even though soya bean meal is rich in nitrogen, it is not the only element that plants need. Provide plants with a well-balanced diet by perpetually improving the soil with lots of organic materials, like leaf mould, wood chips, straw, manure and compost.